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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30079854">10:16</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherealtulip/pseuds/etherealtulip'>etherealtulip</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>time is a flat circle and we're all going to hell [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(unintentional), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hybrid TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insecurity, Prequel, Prison Arc (Dream SMP), References to Wilbur's Past Videos, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, TommyInnit Needs a Break (Video Blogging RPF)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:01:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30079854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherealtulip/pseuds/etherealtulip</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"he's a big man, after all, and the big man code demanded that he take a stand for himself."</p><p>or, 'tommy in a solid, unbreakable box; what will he do?'</p><p>lowercase intended, prequel to 11:16</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>time is a flat circle and we're all going to hell [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213130</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>10:16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw for unintentional mild self-harm and sentences that can be interpreted as suicide idealisation/suicidal thoughts (scroll to the end notes to see the specifics).</p><p>this isn't a rpf in the sense that i imagined the cc's when i wrote this. this is strictly about their characters on the dream smp, but if they change their minds and find these types of fics uncomfortable, i'll remove this and whatever else i put into the series :]</p><p>i've proofread this, but i'm bad at forming thoughts &lt;3 please ignore the mistakes because my notes app doesn't have a reliable grammar/spelling/coherence checker &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>all is not well, tommy decides, keeping his face vaguely in his cellmate's direction even as his eyes begin to slide shut.</p><p><br/>
another week of this? even a few days would be too much. his wrist still aches from the incident from a few days ago, where dream had grabbed him with some strength to stop him from walking away.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>his fingers, their sharp nails, latch onto the soft fabric of his threadbare tee, idly pulling and tearing at the collar when he feels dream's eyes return to him-an otherwise innocuous gesture if not for slight... tilt of his head, as well as the oddly pristine mask covering his face.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>his heart pounds louder when the noise in his right ear disappears, a sharp whistling taking its place before his hearing slowly fades back in. the static remains, however, buzzing excitedly when dream pauses in his unnecessary breathing to stare at tommy's hunched form.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>he can feel the malicious gaze on the top of his head, burning patterns into his skull when he refuses to humour his cellmate's attempts at mindless conversation. the last words he spoke to dream, during the wrist incident, still bounce around his head, doubts tainting them and tinting them various shades of red.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>he's strong. he can... he can be strong.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>another voice-older, hauntingly british-pops in to mock him every few hours, parroting his thoughts back at him, cackling hysterically when he flinches further into the darker recesses of his mind with every comment.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>he buries his head into the crooks of his forearms, squishing his face into his knees and hunching over when he hears dream shift in his position across the room and abruptly stop. he breathes in the heat of the wall of lava, each inhale almost searing his throat, each 'pop' forcibly releasing the trapped air from his lungs.</p><p><br/>
he feels hopeless, is hopeless, can never be anything but hopeless.</p><p><br/>
he can't even breathe right.</p><p><br/>
and if he can't even breathe right, how could he possibly prove his worth?</p><p><br/>
so, he thinks, and thinks...</p><p><br/>
about dying,</p><p><br/>
about flying,</p><p><br/>
about drowning in a world full of water, or burning to death in a land scorched by lava, or looking up to see tnt descend upon him, or being encased in bedrock-</p><p><br/>
suddenly, an offhand comment from w-from sam makes its presence known, the memory hardly a month old.</p><p><br/>
'box breathing', the technique is called.</p><p><br/>
...cruel.</p><p><br/>
<em>(tommy in a box, what will he do?</em>
</p><p><br/>
<em>suffocate.)</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>so - in, and pause, and out, and pause. again and again, over and over. find a rhythm or<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <strike>(let's be the villains)</strike><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>die.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>he isn't one to accept death so easily, though. he frowns, pointedly keeping his eyes pressed against his arms, turning away from the lava barrier's gentle lullaby. he faces the corner of the cell that dream occupies, marvelling at the unblemished obsidian floors beneath him for a lack of better things to do.</p><p> </p><p><em>(if obsidian was so durable, surely letting him leave the cell wouldn't be too hard a problem, too gargantuan a task? there wouldn't have been anything to repair! if there was, it would have been fixed by then! the perpetrator was long gone, probably, so what was the point of keeping him... here? why </em>here<em>? why here...</em></p><p> </p><p><em>...with </em>him<em>?)</em></p><p> </p><p>he breathes in again, this time without the accompanied crackle of heat and the rush of warm air, and exhales on his own terms, letting go of his thoughts for the nth time. he repeats the motion, feeling something quiet and warm make its way into his chest as he does so. it rests against the right side of his torso, gently calming the tempo of his heart.</p><p><br/>
he licks his dry, cracked lips, idly wincing as his tongue begins to hurt where it passed by his teeth. he focuses on the pain, feeling his heart pump in time with the increase of incessant stinging.</p><p><br/>
with each beat, he relaxes a muscle, pulling away from himself. he straightens his fingers slowly, placing their relaxed positions back on his arms. he eases his shoulders back, leaning on the wall instead of relying on his withering strength to keep himself upright.</p><p><br/>
he is fine.</p><p><br/>
one more week.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>he'll be fine.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>everything will be okay.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>in his sudden haze, he doesn't notice the silence.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>it's only when dream finally completely a single motion smoothly, not halting when tommy flinches away on instinct, that he realises that something is amiss. it's not enough to simply <em>feel it</em> or <em>hear it</em>, though, so tommy moves to lift his head and meets his cellmate's blank gaze, but pauses. hesitates. thinks for the hundredth time.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>(he lifts his head and chooses tubbo.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>he lifts his head and rejects his presidency.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>he lifts his head and fails their country.</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>he lifts his head and loses his most prized possessions, and the lives of his friends, and their nation's independence, and his sense of self to his best friend's power climb.</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>so, by all means, he should cower. he should hide his eyes, lower his gaze, bow down to the people in power and accept a life of submission. it'd be like pogtopia all over again, staying in the shadows of the people he once thought to his family as he watched his friend lose his joy in the limelight.</em>
</p><p><br/>
<em>safe, until it wasn't. until they won the war, but lost it. until it was "exile or death". until he found himself under the same light wilbur once was, staring out into a sea of scornful, furious faces as he failed to meet their most basic expectations.</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>that's never been him, though. staying back, watching people fight for their lives on the sidelines... hearing people speak ill of everything he did to protect their country? his pride would take too big of a blow.</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>he's a big man, after all, and the big man code demanded that he take a stand for himself.)</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>slowly, he lifts his head, opens his mouth<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
and dies<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<strike>(eventually)</strike>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(about the self-harm: it occurs after "...the tempo of his heart." and before "with each beat...". he accidentally cuts his tongue on his teeth (because i guess he's a hybrid now? sure). there are no references to blood and the two sentences that mention it are roughly 40 words in total.</p><p>about the thoughts: pretty much all of them are between "...he can be strong." and "he isn't one to accept death so easily". he's just very insecure of himself and his actions because of the things he's dealt with.)</p><p>this is filler, i guess, since my notes app has a stupid word count restriction and my prompt note was reaching its limit so i wrote a few random lines (the first few of this fic, actually lmao) and moved on to a new note, only to realise that those lines sorta fit whatever i was trying to do with 11:16. but they didn't work chronologically in the same fic and... yeah.</p><p>anyway, hi. i have so much shit to do, but here i am, writing minecraft fanfiction. hope this was somewhat acceptable. if you leave me comments, i will cry real tears and be very happy :]</p></blockquote></div></div>
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